Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870

Chapter XXIII: Going Home in the Morning (2)

Text size

Before going out for a day's sport, resolve yourself into a committee of one for the preservation of choice ornithological specimens. By this we do not mean that you are to set up in business as a taxidermist, but that you are bound--if a true sportsman--to protect the song birds, and the birds that are useful in destroying noxious vermin, and all the beautiful feathered creatures that ornament our woods, and fields, and parks, from the depredations of the ignorant, loutish, pestilent, pernicious pot-hunter. The Sportsmen's Clubs that have been organized throughout the country should be supported by every true sportsman; and if you lay a thick stick vigorously across the back of the first fool you see about to kill Cock Robin, you will have established a very efficacious Sportsman's Club of your own, and will have earned the best regards of Mr. PUNCHINELLO to boot--by which he means, if you choose, that you have his leave and license to boot the fellow into the bargain.

* * * * *

MORE ABOUT CHIGNONS.

The chignon is coming to the front again. By this we do not mean that it is worn, or likely to be worn before--in saying which the word "before" is not used by us in its acceptation of previously, but in that of front; although, now that we come to think of it, the _chignon_ certainly has been worn before, as may be seen by consulting old-fashioned prints, in which it is shown worn behind. This, to the ordinary mind, may seem rather confused; and so it is; but what else could you expect from a writer when he has got _chignon_ upon the brain?

For newspapers the _chignon_ is just now a teeming subject. Every day or so somebody writes to a paper, saying that be has discovered a new kind of parasite, hatched by the genial warmth of woman's nape from some deleterious padding or other used in the manufacture of her _chignon_. Sometimes it is vegetable stuff, sometimes animal, but it always teems with pedicular creatures akin to that low and vulgar kind not usually recognized in polite society. All these horrors come and and don't make much difference in the _chignon_ market; but PUNCHINELLO has a new one that is calculated to create a sensation--about the nape of the female neck--and here it is.

In the beech forests of Hungary, as is well known to Danubian explorers, there exists a very remarkable breed of pigs, one of their peculiarities being that they are covered with wool instead of with bristles. These pigs are shorn regularly every year, like sheep. Their wool, which is very stiff and curly, is used for stuffing cushions and mattresses of the cheap and nasty kind. Since _chignons_ have come into fashion, a vast amount of pig's wool has been imported for their manufacture. By microscopic investigation the wool of the Hungary pig has been found swarming with _trichinae_; to a fearful extent. Now, it is easy to imagine that the _trichinae_ obtained from a hungry pig must be of a very insatiable and ravenous disposition, and this is but too often realized by the silly wearers of the porcine _chignons_, into whose brains, (when they happen to have any,) the horrible little parasites worm their way in myriads, rendering their hapless victims pig-headed to an extent that defies description either with pen or pencil.

The Pig-faced Woman exhibited some time ago in Europe was once a very pretty girl, her hideous deformity being the result of wearing a _chignon_ stuffed with Hungary pigs' wool.

In purchasing a pig _chignon_, then, the Girl of the Period had better look out that she does not get "too much pork for a shilling."

* * * * *

MATCHING THE MATCHLESS.

Matchmaking has always been traditionally supposed to be the chief end of woman. No wonder that, with the spread of the new theories of woman's rights, therefore, we find them invading departments of industry which were formerly supposed to be peculiarly the domain of the stronger sex. We have recently seen running matches, swimming matches, rowing matches, and other fancy matches, made by women. And why not? The women are wise in thus preparing themselves for proficiency in the arts of primary elections, ballot stuffing and the rest, incidental to untrammelled suffrage.

In regard to this, also, it may not be amiss to suggest that this passion for match-making lies at the bottom of the recent increase in divorce, which so alarms some timid moralists. Certain it is that easy divorce enlarges the opportunities for its gratification, and to be "fancy" and "free" is no longer a charm peculiar only to "maiden meditation."

* * * * *

HISTORY FACTORY.

Card to the Public.

The undersigned, having recently increased their facilities for the manufacture of History upon an unusually large scale, would hereby announce to their patrons and the public in general that they have associated with them Messrs. VICTOR EMANUEL and General TROCHU.

LOUIS NAPOLEON,

M. BISMARCK,

WM. O'PRUSSIA,

* * * * *

Commercial.

A proof of the present great depression in the Whaling business is the fact that the editor of the _Sun_ still walks about unflogged.

* * * * *

_Conductor_. "Wanted to get off, did you?--Then why in thunder didn't you say so?"]

* * * * *

THE CHOICE OF PARIS (IN AMERICA.)

One drink, dear friend, before we part--
Before I tempt the shining sea;
One drink to pledge each constant heart--
Yet stay, what shall the tipple be?

My eyes are dazed with bar-room "signs"
In which, I pray, shall friendship conquer?
Can alien I drink "native" wines?
Are Jew-lips Christian tipple, _mon coeur_?

This "cobbler"--is't a heeling drink?
A "smash" were surely inauspicious;
_Toute de-suite_, two "sours"--yet I think
Ah! _qu'est-ce-qui c'est!_--acetate is vicious!

_Garçon!_ two "skins"--the name is 'cute---
You Yankees "twig" the pharmaceutical;
But hold! art sure the flay-vor'll suit?
Will it not smack too much of cuticle?

No, boy, no "skins." Let's try some beer,
A milder fluid for to-day;
Ottawa bring us--_c'est à dire_,
Some beer that keeps the 'ot away.

No? Well, some ale: in limpid Bass
We'll drown our thirst and parting grief;
Come drink--_arretez!_ this _must_ pass--
'Twould look too much like bas-relief!

The hour arrives; our lips are dry;
What _shall_ it be? Oh, name it for me!
A _tasse_ of gin? I drink and fly
To toss upon the ocean stormy.

* * * * *

"NOTHING LIKE LEATHER."

Freedom of action is one of the greatest boons enjoyed by mankind in modern days. Its rate of progress is encouraging, especially since the Liberal Club of this city has taken it under its protection. It is a very significant association, is the Liberal Club; rather iconoclastic, to be sure, but only a little ahead of the times, perhaps, in that respect; Some of our cherished forms of speech have already been rendered obsolete by the Liberal Club. It used to be such a clincher to say, when one wanted to enforce a point by indicating an impossibility, "I will eat my boots unless"--etc., etc. That clincher has gone to the place whither good clinchers go, forever. At a late meeting of the Liberal Club, Professor VAN DER WEYDE contributed to the evening collation a pudding made of an old boot. The pudding was garnished with the wooden pegs that had kept the boot together, sole and body, while it walked the earth. The boot-jack with which the original source of the pudding used to be pulled off was also exhibited, and excited great interest. It is the intention, of the Professor to subject this implement to some process by which it will be resolved into farina, or sawdust, and then to make a Jack Pudding of it. Many of the ladies and gentlemen present partook of the boot pudding, and pronounced it excellent. One lady, (a member of Sorosis, we believe,) said that she thought it tasted like a pear. The Professor assured her, however, that he had used but one boot in making it, not a pair. Altogether, the pudding was a success. Freedom of action had been vindicated, and the absurd prejudice that had hitherto prevented men from utilizing their old boots as food, except in extreme cases, was shattered with one blow.

* * * * *

PANOPLY FOR OUR POLICE.

PUNCHINELLO felicitates the Municipal Police Force on the magnificent new shields with which the manly breasts of its members are decorated. Nevertheless, PUNCHINELLO considers it sheer mockery to call that a shield by which nothing is shielded. A buckle might as well be called a buckler as the policeman's badge a shield. Already our noble skirmishers of the side-walk are fully provided for the offensive, and, considering the risks run by them from the roughs, the toughs and the gruffs, it is high time that they were furnished with something in the defensive line. Curb-chain undershirts have been suggested, but an objection to their use is that links of them are apt to be carried into the interior anatomy by pistol bullets, thus introducing a surplus of iron into the blood,--an accession which is apt to steel the heart of the officer thus experimented on, and so render him deaf to the cries of innocence in distress. PUNCHINELLO suggests, then, that the policeman's shield should _be_ a shield. Let it be made sufficiently large to cover the most vulnerable portion of the person, as shown in the annexed design. If made of gong-metal, so much the better, as the wearer could then ring out signals upon it with his locust far more effectively than by the present ridiculous mode of beating up rowdydow upon the flag-stones. Although our gallant Municipal Blue is never backward in facing danger, yet it might be judicious for him to wear a shield upon his back as well as upon his front, because it is just possible that, in case of a row, his large, heavy boots might be conveying him away in a direction diametrically opposite to the spot at which the shooting was going on.

* * * * *

_Sidewalk Merchant_. "BUY A BUNDLE OF TOOTHPICKS, BOSS--ONLY THREE CENTS." _Old Gent_. "TOOTHPICKS?--WHY, I'VE JUST BIN AND HAD MY LAST TOOTH OUT!"]

* * * * *

GEO. W. WHEAT & Co, PRINTERS, No. 8 SPRUCE STREET.

Comments

Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870Chapter XXIII: Going Home in the Morning (2)

0%15 min left in chapter